Archinect - News

Sharon Prince, visionary force behind Grace Farms, on her career-guiding ethical compass

2022-03-23T16:25:00-04:00

“Think about it. First it was food,” she says, referring to the decades-long push for local, sustainable and ethical eating, as well as reliable sourcing and labeling. “Then came clothing. I’m proposing that shelter will be next.” “Our velocity for good has been established day by day.”

Writer Ted Loos visited the SANAA-designed Connecticut retreat virtually for a profile of founder Sharon Prince, a former fashion retail executive who founded the 80-acre venue in 2009 around the five core principles of nature, the arts, justice, community, and faith.

Prince spoke about her collaboration with new American Academy member and Yale SoA Dean Deborah Berke on a project called Design for Freedom that looks to hold the industry into account for support unethical labor practices by creating a database that is exclusive of firms with a known history of dealing with sordid entities at the front end of the building materials supply chain.

Previously on Archinect: SANAA's Grace Farms “River” building wins latest MCHAP

“At Yale, Sharon provided initial support for a new joint course between the architecture school and the law school that traces the role of forced labor in the building supply chain and seeks to eradicate it from the architectural design process,” Berke explained...

Grace Farms' Design for Freedom movement seeks to eradicate forced labor from the production of building materials

2020-10-28T12:48:00-04:00

Sharon Prince, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Grace Farms Foundation, announced this week Design for Freedom, a new movement to eradicate modern slavery from the built environment by addressing the systemic use of forced labor in the building materials supply chain.

"Examining our building materials supply chain is a moral and legal imperative,” said Prince in a statement. “Almost all modern construction projects are subsidized with slavery, due to unchecked forced labor that permeates thousands of raw and composite materials sourced both locally in the United States and globally. While initial attention concentrated on developing ethical labor practices on construction and job sites, we now seek to extend these regulations to the building materials supply chain, including oversight of sub-contractors, manufacturers, and commodities-level providers in such areas as forestry, fiber, and mining."

Design for Freedom began back in 2017, when Prince and the late Bill Menking, Fo...

SANAA's Grace Farms “River” building wins latest MCHAP

2016-10-19T23:00:00-04:00

The verdict is out! SANAA's meandering Grace Farms “River” project has won the second Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, as announced by IIT College of Architecture Dean Wiel Arets and MCHAP Director Dirk Denison during a ceremony tonight at the S.R. Crown Hall in Chicago. First awarded in 2014, the biennial MCHAP is IIT's way of illuminating the most distinguished architectural projects built in the Americas. Projects for the second edition had to be completed between January 2014 and December 2015.

As part of their prize package, SANAA founders Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa will be appointed as MCHAP Chair at IIT Architecture Chicago for the following academic year and will receive up to $50,000 to fund research and a collaborative publication with the school.

SANAA won over an international group of finalists that included Michael Maltzan, Grafton Architects, and Patkau Architects + Kearns Mancini Architects, to name a few (projects pictured in photo gallery below).

The River has co...

Watch SANAA's "River" project come to life in this time-lapse

2016-02-03T13:21:00-05:00

SANAA's "River" community center emerges from the grounds of the New Canaan-based Grace Farms in less than a minute and a half in this time-lapse video by Work Cam Zone. The video captures the meandering structure transforming along with its open landscape, starting from September 2013 to October 2015, when it opened to the public with a slew of festive events.

Take a gander at the video right below.

SANAA's meandering "River" community center opens to the public

2015-10-09T15:15:00-04:00

Within the green open spaces of Grace Farms in New Canaan, Connecticut stands the new arts and community center, the River, which finally opened its doors to the public today. The Grace Farms Foundation selected SANAA to design the building in 2010, not long before Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa won the Pritzker Prize that year. SANAA first revealed their design in 2012.

The new 83,000-square foot structure consists of transparent-walled multi-functional volumes and covered walkways that wind down the park's rolling terrain, hence its River name. Its milky exterior complements the nearby woodlands and meadows at Grace Farms, while the clear glass walls show off the surrounding community gardens, athletic fields, and trails that SANAA designed in collaboration with OLIN. Fifty-five 500-foot-deep geothermal walls heat and cool the building.

The River's scheme boasts a 20,900 sq.ft. indoor amphitheater; a staffed library; a Commons dining and living room that can accommodate up to 300 ...

SANAA's Grace Farms River project to open in fall 2015

2014-11-19T19:31:00-05:00

SANAA's River project in the upcoming Grace Farms in New Canaan, CT will finally celebrate its grand opening next fall. The non-profit Grace Farms Foundation developed Grace Farms as an open public park for the local community, whereas the SANAA-designed building will be used for various community programs and recreation.

After an international search, the Foundation selected SANAA in 2010 to design the structure -- not long before the firm won the 2010 Pritzker Prize. SANAA then revealed their design of the River in 2012.

Reminiscent of SANAA's 2009 Serpentine Pavilion, the River building evidently gets its name from the way it meanders through the park's greenery. The 86,000 sq.ft structure is made of glass, concrete, steel, and wood, and is essentially connected by a single roof that appears to float approximately 10-14 feet above the ground. From an aerial view, the roof's water-like appearance allows the project to blend in with the surrounding landscape, which SANAA designed in ...

Editor's Picks #284

2012-10-01T01:10:00-04:00

This week, SANAA released a proposal for its first building in the United States , located in New Canaan, Connecticut. The steel, concrete, and wood headquarters for the Grace Farms Foundation will wind its way along a piece of the 75-acre property owned by the nonprofit charitable organization. FRaC labeled it a "running fence" yet, AP simply "love(d) it".

News
Caela J. McKeever a self-described "young architect" penned How the economy upended young architects' hopes. The piece looks at how frustrated architecture grads of her generation are dropping out of the profession leading to a "renaissance happening among young architects — and it’s not in architecture". Fred Scharmen argued "The concerns the author highlights are real, but IMO, not traceable directly back to the economy, rather to the failure of many offices to respond to the opportunities laid out by the current crisis. Models of office hierarchy, project delivery, marketing, and client relations need to change. ...I was lucky enough to have experience with one office that recognized this, and is in the process of adapting" while Given replied "I have to say of all the complaints I have against the profession, the ones she makes aren't really the ones I care about...Id much rather fix the growing trend towards the field being divided between rich young people doing high ...

SANAA Unveils Design for First U.S. Building Since Pritzker Win

2012-09-26T19:20:00-04:00

This week, the Tokyo-based firm SANAA released a proposal for its first building in the United States since its principals—Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa—won the Pritzker Prize in 2010. Located in New Canaan, Connecticut, the 65,000-square-foot glass, steel, concrete, and wood headquarters for the Grace Farms Foundation will wind its way along a piece of the 75-acre property owned by the nonprofit charitable organization.